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Red Hat Brings Linux to Unisys

Unisys, breaking with its Microsoft-centric ways, is embracing Linux with a Red Hat partnership.

Unisys is offering Red Hat Inc.s Red Hat Enterprise Linux across its entire line of Unisys servers, the two companies announced Tuesday.

Further, by announcing an array of initiatives Red Hat and Unisys made it clear that this isnt just a product partnership. The initiatives include joint marketing, customer support, continued development of open-source road maps, training and dedicated engineering personnel.

Unisys will be offering RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) across its full line of Intel-based Unisys ES7000 servers, running on both 32-bit and 64-bit Intel processors, from four-way to 32-way.

"CIOs are increasingly looking to standardize their data center environments on Intel platforms and move away from expensive, proprietary Unix/RISC-based systems," Chander Khanna, vice president of Unisys platform marketing, said in a statement.

Further reading

"As the acknowledged leader in the delivery of high-end Intel solutions, Unisys is ideally suited to capitalize on new opportunities within the growing number of organizations selecting Red Hat," Khanna said. "Working with Red Hat, Unisys will help customers create flexible and robust Linux-based solutions designed to meet their specific needs. Its a giant leap forward in developing a mission-critical ecosystem around the Linux operating environment."

Its also a step away from Unisys Microsoft-centric x86 server offerings, according to Stacey Quandt, senior business analyst for the Robert Frances Group.

"Unisys stands out more for close partnership with Microsoft and its slow march toward supporting Linux. The relentless pressure for customers to reduce IT spending and the economics and performance of Linux on Intel versus Unix clearly drove the partnership between Unisys and Red Hat," said Quandt.

"The fact that Unisys sought a partnership with Red Hat indicates the companys desire for a broader market beyond Microsoft Windows customers," Quandt said. "Although ES7000 servers can run on both 32-bit and 64-bit Intel processors and be configured from four-way to 32-way systems, a key focus of adoption will be virtualization."

IBM, long a Unisys competitor, has made Linux server virtualization one of the lynchpins of its Linux server offerings on its midrange and mainframe offerings. It has proven to be a successful approach for grid-style and on-demand computing for IBM.

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